Category: Poetry

Someone is waiting for me

in this world.

Like the sun at

the end of a road, they open their

big warm tendrils, as if to

give me the lightning hug of

a big, orange octopus.

I love you. I got you.

Grab the shalt shaker and enjoy a freshly-plucked
beauty from the warmth of the porch.

Let me tell you about the unread books that make me nervous,
friends that linger too long,
and tell too much.

From bestiaries to addicts and the ketchup of
helping the self, too much leads to juicy paralysis.
Ah…there’s the shake.

I looked it up; there’s a nervous book syndrome and
a lost friend disorder, and the meaning of a dream
about a story that eats you alive at night,
its mouthy edges and black teeth saying
there’s more for you to hear.
The sound of pages is deafening.

I was walking around the death of a Greyhound,
when it came out of nowhere.
No gun, or rape, or tales of abuse, but an arrow pointed
straight between my breasts.
I could see her eyes pulling back like a bow.

Grief is a vanity. No, a conceit.

I stood naked in the escape room,
the arrow dangling from the middle of my breast,
just missing the heart.
Huh.

Wallow. What a pretty word.
Kind of sounds like willow, speaks of water.
Pussy willows in ponds.

The arrow popped out with a sucking sound,
but there was no blood.
Rubbing the spot, I said to Eunice, my drunk inner child,
It’s ok, sweetheart.

I’ve just been moved from the sun to the clouds,
changed nests and perches, or schools if you like.
I don’t like this one; the ocean stings little toes and there’s
no one to do the splits with or steal a watch from.

There are mean girls on the lawn, and even the ones outside of it
have gone to wearing 501s instead of A-Smiles, and I’m out of my element,
so I settle on ice cream for lunch.

At least in class I win at spelling, and my new friends are
right out of a Farmer Ted script, all dirty retainers and some
short blonde boy named Jesse who loves the girl whose
breath stinks and has dandruff.

But I want at that lawn. I want to be able to walk across it,
sit on it after the rain,
claim I’m someone who can be on lawns.

Then I tell my millionaire lie, and it circulates the inner circle.
It gets back to the principal and his inner circle,
and they form a circle to talk about me.

No one asked me why I lied, there are other lawns.
This is the time, I’m sure, that having a lawn, or even a box, is
favorable to the walk home when you’ve been seen outside the lawn.
No arms around you in the fog, and you can’t get on planes anymore
without getting drunk.

The Sycamore grows branches for crows’ nests.
The harvest starts in April, and the hiding not
long after that. The Crepe Myrtle is starting to
blossom honey leaves.

Today I caught an Eastern Grey Squirrel foraging in my lilacs.
I’d like to think it was a stop to smell the roses moment, a
cultured creature admiring the lilac’s fleeting
life and intoxicating fragrance,

like the Star Jasmine I encounter on my walks. I bury my
face in its blossoms, and take a deep breath.

My dog smells the roots of the Sycamore, then makes his mark.

There. There’s another bird song I don’t know.

Yesterday, before breakfast, I decapitated a rat.

Rather, I should say, I cut its body from its head.

I guess it was a reverse decapitation.

You see, its head was stuck in a trap on one side of a fence,

and its body was dangling from my side.

I had a boyfriend who looked like a rat and a

rat named Poe, at the same time. He was a fry cook,

and maybe the rat was, too, in his last life.

I used to hold rats gently as a child, the same way I held this one,

when I wrapped its body in a plastic bag. Seeing the tail made me jump.

I walked around the block and told Robert he had a rat head in his trap,

explaining that I had to go all Aron Ralston on it with a pair of dull scissors.

I’m impressed, he said. I smiled and smoothed my hair back, feeling proud.

He asked, did you get a haircut? Yes, but I wanted an a-line.

I made slicing motions in the air to show how

I would have liked it cut.

Shells for ears, whisper deep water tales,
like the way Beetlejuice used to stick her beak in your ear,
click her tongue, waking up stem with I love your

oranges to be peeled, tiny star paw, hamster furry soul.
I will build a ladder for you. Climb out from the green rocks,
out from the cold, into the crook of my arm.

I’ll no longer linger at you from my red velvet throne, instead
you and I will leave Tetris behind, in a game of climb-the-stairs defection.
It’s either up to the hot attic, to the spineless books, or to

the smiling Chow Chow in the filthy yard, drinking cocoa from her cave.
Come, let us all run on campus, off-leash. I’ll put you in the crook of
a tree branch, then help you down again.

Where will you go when it’s all over, because
the stars in your galaxy are all askew?
Will you fly north, only to return to see
your rooftops removed?

There’s a ghost that rides its bike in the
tennis courts at night. I shine
my useless flashlight on it, and only
illuminate the wheels. I left my phone at home.
I am afraid.

These are times of stupor, as we sit up
in our painted trees and wonder if there
will be flowers in the spring.

There’s a ghost that rides its bike,
like a hummingbird with a compass. The
hummingbird is a compass, a warrior litmus,
rings around the planet.

Where will you go when you’re all over?
I walk the dog at night. My god she’s beautiful, a
face full of scars, eyes full of stars.
I am not afraid.

Give me a mountain again.
Soft trails for my tired feet and
a canopy of oak and redwood and eucalyptus.
Let my mind soften through the wind that is the
ocean in the trees, and let me keep up only
with myself.

The Joneses across the street gave birth to their third child. Assigned female at birth, they are waiting for her to identify. They call her Horse. On occasion, Horse escapes, goes door-to-door, and forages for food.

People have figured out that the fireworks are just that, and why are there so many people outside the gun store?

Dog adoptions are up, as are people complaining about dog poop on Nextdoor. Your puppy turned seven this year.

We all got fit, or fat. We won’t know until next year when the Peloton pays for itself, or it doesn’t. Gen Z continues to negotiate time off to surf.

The number of crows has now matched or exceeded the world population.

The cat still doesn’t care.